


Without Breaking Anything

by Ani



Series: Unclose Me (The Falls) [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: BBC Sherlock - Freeform, F/F, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Reichenbach Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-21
Updated: 2011-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-24 20:32:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ani/pseuds/Ani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing at the crux of things was said, but it was the everyday everything that they’d be sharing personally, if they were still in 221B; message by message, word by word, they sewed their lives back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without Breaking Anything

            John Watson was going to soldier on.

            That was what he did, and he was good at it. Hadn’t he managed in worse situations - more dangerous, if not more extreme - and not just managed but performed with excellence, staunched blood and torn back lives, far beyond the minute he thought his own life was a fragile gust of wind away from gone? If he could survive a real war, and a private one, surely he could have one simple conversation with his wife.

            Surely he could cope with Sherlock coming back.

            He realized the problem, when he dried his face off and padded into the hallway to hear low voices coming from the entrance way; he’d moved too slow and lost the tactical advantage of first strike.

            “How are _you_ , Mary?” Lestrade was asking.

            “Tired of people asking that question,” she said, and they both laughed. Lestrade’s was genuine, but John could hear the nervousness reappear in his voice at the next question.

            “And John?”

            “You know better than I, the way he gets this time of year.”

            “Oh well - yes, but - not quite the same, this year, eh?”

            “I thought the baby would help too,” she said quietly, almost too low for John to hear, except he was on the last stair and about the round the corner where they were. “But last night he looked so alone...”

            “Sorry, do you not-”

            “Lestrade,” he said warmly, stepping through. The detective startled guilty, leaning away from Mary, who put on her brave smile for him. “Nice to see you! We still on for the match next week?”

            “Uh yeah, sure, but-”

            “I’m sorry, terribly rude, but can I speak to my wife alone, for a moment?”

            He nodded, looking suspicious, but John quietly steered Mary back into the living room and took her hands in his.

            “Darling, uhm. Lestrade is here because - well, we just found out, that is - Sherlock is back.”

            “Oh,” she said. “From the dead?”

            “Turns out he, ah, wasn’t dead at all! Just faking it. To stop Moriarty. And now everything is fine so he could come back.” He gave her his biggest I’m-completely-sane smile. It clearly wasn’t working.

            “Is Lestrade here to help you, John?”           

            “No. _No_. Sherlock really is - have you seen him yet?” John asked loudly. Lestrade stopped pretending he couldn’t hear and came over to them.

            “He was in this morning for a case.” Lestrade held up his phone for them to see and started a forwarded video, Sherlock smiling at the camera and then doors bursting open, Anderson’s high-pitched scream, papers flying everywhere, Donovan looking up a moment later to gasp and fall out of her chair. When the detective inspector himself appeared on the screen, looking both annoyed and unsurprised, Lestrade quickly turned it off. “Still just as dramatic. He’s working on that kidnapping case, I don’t know if you saw the news.”

            “Oh good,” John said, meaning it. “Those poor children.”

“Excuse me,” Mary said, “but I think I’d like to sit down and drink a cup of water.”

            John immediately helped her into the sofa, giving her hand a comforting squeeze and checking for any signs of distress. She mouthed a _thank you_ to Lestrade, who took off for the glass, and then gave John a _quite_ pointed look.

            “John,” she said sternly, “when did you _actually_ discover this?”

            “Yeah. Uh.” He exhaled loudly, jigging his leg, which still did cramp up, at times. “Last night. That’s why I was home a bit early.”

            She patted the space next to her expectantly. He hated this couch, to be completely honest, the fabric was so harsh and dry, all the furniture was hers – but he sat and sighed and nodded his guilt.

            “I’m sorry, Mary. I’m so sorry, I know I should’ve - there’s no excuse, I just...”

            “And is there anything else I should know? Should I expect evil acrobats to interrupt our dates?”

            Ah. Because of course Mary could forgive him, surely already had, categorizing it as shock and moving on. She moved on better than any human he’d ever met. But she’d heard all of Sarah’s stories, when they first started dating, and was worried John was going to run off with Sherlock.

            Right.

            As if _that_ would ever happen.

            “No,” he said very seriously. “I’m not going to be working with him. That was - that’s all in the past. It doesn’t fit anywhere into our life now.”

            “Do you wish it would?” she asked quietly.

            And John’s heart almost broke, seeing her concern, her absolute undying love for him, her moving herself into a small little space so Sherlock could take up the rest, if that was what would make John _happy_. He almost told her, in that moment.

            Instead he just said, “No. Really, truly, no,” and kissed her forehead. Her hair smelled like peach shampoo and he kissed her again. She smiled and stroked his knuckles with her thumb, nodding that she understood, that she took him at his word.

            “We’ll have to have him over though, won’t we? I can’t imagine how happy you must be, to have your friend back.” She took the cup from Lestrade, who had quietly reappeared, and gulped the entire thing down. “You too, Greg. We should have a celebratory dinner together. What’s Sherlock’s favourite meal? D’you think he’d play charades?”

            “God help us,” Lestrade muttered, and John laughed. He realized he was finally free of his quiet burden, and started describing Sherlock to Mary, the real Sherlock, not just the brilliant companion of which he’d whispered in hoarse passing. Lestrade jumped in helpfully with the choice detail (“ _seven_ ears, the coffeepot was never the same”) and Mary had needed several more glasses of water and laughed herself silly. She clearly didn’t totally believe them and Lestrade was _clearly_ enjoying that way too much.

            “Just you wait,” he’d said, and John agreed that they should have Sherlock over, as soon as possible. Maybe that weekend.

 

 

 

 

            Not that weekend.

            Not the next week, either.

Or the week after that.

            John found himself in a terrible mess of lies. He _hated_ lying. It was bad form, and unethical, and really very confusing. But if you start with a lie you can only build from there; he made polite evasions, played Sherlock’s essoiner, said he’d been in touch. And John hadn’t. He hadn’t called Sherlock once, because... well, because it was still too hard, and he couldn’t talk to Sherlock because Sherlock would immediately deduce that fact, and...

            That was the other thing he hated about lying, which was that with Sherlock, he didn’t have to. He _couldn’t_ , of course, but also Sherlock wanted him to be honest, even if it hurt. He didn’t have to think of the perfect words, or make excuses, or worry constantly. John was genuinely a nice man (and he held on to that when all else failed him) and nice men, as a rule, care about what others need but it’s so much _easier_ when that other person just tells you “I need tea immediately, and for you to leave me alone for the next three hours,” and _mean_ it.

            But since Mary was genuinely nice they were always having to out-nice each other, and making sure the other one wasn’t just being nice and keeping their desires secret, and because Mary was nice she did not for a moment suspect something was up. When John said Sherlock was busy with the kidnapping case, and then that he was catching up with family, and then that he was just too tired ( _“still recovering, what he’s gone through_ ”) Mary made sympathetic noises and just said, “next week then”. Occasionally she’d sigh for John, and tell him he really needed to go _see_ Sherlock, even if Sherlock couldn’t come over for a whole night, how much John missed him and now he was back, couldn’t Sherlock spare an hour? And John couldn’t say that all the texts from Sherlock were in fact him wordlessly begging John for just one hour.

            He didn’t ignore these. He always texted back.

            In fact, this was how he spent the bulk of his evenings. Mary went to bed early these days, physically exhausted even if she read for suspiciously long. So John would turn on the telly and get out his phone as soon as her door shut. Not that he was doing it behind her back, she knew they were sending messages, he’d answer them in front of her if it was at the shop or something, and he kept them all, on his phone. If she read them they’d seem perfectly innocent. And they were. There were a thousand things neither Sherlock or John had said yet, and wouldn’t, over a phone. They didn’t talk about the missing three years, or the kiss, or what had been, or their growing absence from each other. But Sherlock texted about his cases, and how annoying people were being, Mycroft’s latest visit (he’d needed a new crown, Sherlock had crowed), the interesting mold growth in the sink. John offered his analyses (dead wrong), sympathy (pointless), apology (equally pointless), suggestions (I don’t want to get _rid_ of it, John), and his own ephemera: the book he’d read, the worms he’d found in someone’s foot, the long line at the coffee shop. He tried to update Sherlock on the last three years of history (that was two Doctors ago! Yes, this is _important_ ) and Sherlock sent him disgusting pictures of crime scenes. Nothing at the _crux_ of things was said, but it was the everyday everything that they’d be sharing personally, if they were still in 221B; message by message, word by word, they sewed their lives back together.

            _Anderson thinks he speaks a passable French. I have kindly disabused him of this notion. -SH_

 _One of these days I’m going to google Ibo phrases and annoy you with my brilliance. -JW_

 _Ngwanu, kam nwere ya. -SH_

 _...I hate you. -JW_

 _How old do you think this eyeball is? [Picture attached: Image0319.jpg.] -SH_

 _Is that my slipper?! -JW_

 _That was not the question I asked. -SH_

 _You are buying me new slippers. Two, maybe three days. -JW_

 _Anytime. -SH_

            And that was how they were.

 

 

 

            Lestrade had canceled on their rugby night, claiming paperwork (which had mysteriously risen in amount, with the return of Sherlock), but near the end of the month called John and asked him to meet him for a drink after work.

            He waited until John was into his second pint (not buzzed, but comfortable) to bring up his actual topic. “John,” he started, “I, uh...I know it’s none of my business, but we’re mates, right, and I’ve somehow gotten in the middle of this. So I’d like to know does... does Mary _know_? About Sherlock and you?”

            And that was the lie that compounded all lies.

            John sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, which was really all the confirmation Lestrade needed, who groaned and leaned back with a “ _Christ_ , John.”

            “It was just like that for a few months,” John said quietly. “I haven’t really told anyone.” In fact, he’d never told Lestrade. He’d just told things _to_ Lestrade, and they’d come to a mutual but silent understanding on the topic.

            Harry knew, because Harry was the one he’d told everything to, right after. And John knew Mycroft knew but they never said anything about it. Sarah he hadn’t told because... well, it was just too big a _thing_ , to drop on someone like that. She was an ex and a friend, and the one supposed to be helping John be normal, he couldn’t complicate it with that. And since Sarah didn’t know he hadn’t told Mary. That was a bit much, for the beginning of a relationship. And then it’d been so long it’d be awkward _to_ say anything. And... and since Sherlock was dead and everything was over, gone, destroyed forever anyway, did he _need_ to add that? To add “yes, I’ve lost my best friend, and my lover, my partner, my _bashert_ , as he’d said” on top of everything else?           

            “Are you going to?” Lestrade asked.

            “If she needs to know, absolutely,” he said firmly. “Well - yes, yes, I will. But - at the right time.”

            “Is that before or after she sees the two of you melt all over each other?”

            John stiffened.

            “I’m sorry,” Lestrade said. “Sorry. But I’ve seen things like this - okay not _exactly_ like this, but close - play out, and it’s always the same, and I don’t want to see that poor women get hurt. Or you, for that matter. Or Sherlock. And I’m worried about him, John, I really am. He’s... he’s like he was before he met you, only worse.”

            John stared into his drink.

            “These things get people hurt when someone says “it’s all over, that was all in the past,” and it’s not. John, you... I was worried about you, too, for a long, long time. So I don’t know how you feel now. I don’t. But I might suspect. And I _know_. I know _Sherlock_ isn’t over you, John.”

            He didn’t respond.

            “And that’s the last I’m going to say about this,” Lestrade said, signaling for another drink. “Let’s pretend this never happened and talk about the weather.”

            They tried. It even worked, when they both stared idly at a news broadcast, meaningless words slipping past now and again. When John felt it’d be polite he put down his money and gave Lestrade a firmly-felt pat on the shoulder and went home.

            He’d missed seven texts from Sherlock.

            _Bored. -SH_

 _Mrs. Hudson would like to know if you still have her 9 circulars for a hat. -SH_

 _She has made biscuits. -SH_

 _I have just been informed that half of them were intended for you. -SH_

 _I am sure more biscuits can be procured in the future. -SH_

 _Why aren’t you here to replace my milk. -SH_

 _Why aren’t you here. -SH_

            John couldn’t answer that.

            He went home and tried to make Mary his everything and tried to forget.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry this has chapter been late in coming. It might be awhile before the story is finished, because I'm going to be trying NaNoWriMo for the first time this year. But I absolutely *will* finish it, and as soon as possible.


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